May 17, 2013

An MP for the ultra-right Golden Dawn party, Panayiotis Iliopoulos, was ejected from a session in Parliament on Friday after the deputy used derogatory language to revile fellow MPs, according to Ekathimerini. He reportedly shouted "Heil Hitler" while defaming fellow parliament members as "wretched sell-outs" and "goats."

The video ends with Kornev colliding into another car and then exiting the cruiser. What you don't see is that, seconds later, he was hit by an oncoming car. According to the Moscow Times, he was left with a "gaping head wound" and snarled traffic for four hours.

March 16, 2013

The NewsHour conducted an interesting debate this between Kenneth Lieberthal of the Brookings Institution and Gordon Chang of Forbes about the Rise of Xi Jinping and the future of U.S.-China relations.

February 26, 2013

Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) thinks it's a good idea to dump weapons into Syria. Engel evidently believes the U.S. has a "choice" between brokering a peace deal with Russia and Assad, or precipitating the Assad regime's violent collapse.

Engel does not offer any evidence to support the proposition that arming the rebels will produce an outcome amenable to American interests -- this is now apparently simply assumed on faith.

In other Syrian news, the Saudis are reportedly funneling infantry weapons from Croatia into Syria. Not to worry though: they're only giving those weapons to "secular" and "nationalists" groups -- and not jihadists. According to an unnamed CIA official, the rebellion against Assad remains "fragmented" and "operationally incoherent."

February 25, 2013

London's voluble Mayor Boris Johnson made a bit of scene yesterday in an appearance before the London Assembly. After the assembly voted not to debate his budget amendment and requested that Johnson leave the hearing, he berated them as "great supine, protoplasmic invertebrate jellies."

This was the second time in a week that Johnson hurled a gelatinous insult at an opponent. At a campaign stop last week, Johnson branded the Liberal Democrats as "great big wobbling jellies."

February 23, 2013

Mike Mochizuki, associate dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, was on the NewsHour yesterday and gave an interesting overview of the rising tensions between China and Japan.

February 19, 2013

The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof and author Shery WuDunn are attempting to raise awareness of the global trade in sex slaves through an unorthodox method: they've created a Facebook game about it.

Dubbed Half the Sky, the game is backed by an A-list of corporate sponsors and philanthropic interests like the Ford Foundation and Zynga (the creators of Farmville). The more you play, the more charitable donations you unlock.

February 18, 2013

Firebrand preacher Anjem Choudary was secretly filmed by the UK paper The Sun, urging his followers to get on Britain's welfare system or, as he dubbed it, claim their "jihad seeker's allowance."

As the Daily Telegraphnoted, Choudary receives 25,000 pounds a year from the British government. But he's not grateful for the help:

Choudary, who has been banned twice from running organisations under the Terrorism Act, told an audience at a community centre in Bethnal Green, East London, that David Cameron, Barack Obama and the leaders of Pakistan and Egypt were the devil (shaitan) and should be killed.

“What ultimately do we want to happen to them?” asked Choudary. “Maybe I’m the only one who wants the shaitan to be killed. The shaitan should be finished. There should be no shaitan.

“Democracy, freedom, secularism, the parliament, all the MPs and the Presidents, all the kuffar’s ideas, everything the people worship, we have to believe that they are bad and we have got to reject them.”

February 8, 2013

Iran is no North Korea, hermetically sealed off from the rest of the world. But since the 2009 protests, the Iranian regime has been systematically censoring and spying on web users. There are now plans to create a distinct internet (dubbed "Halal web") where Iranians can browse in a regime-approved walled garden (the elite, of course, will suffer no such restrictions).

Maral Pourkazemi created the above video to highlight the plight of the Iranian internet.

February 5, 2013

This video above was distributed by North Korea's state-run media. It depicts a man dreaming of a rocket attack on New York -- to the tune of "We are the World."

The captions inform us that “[s]omewhere in the United States, black clouds of smoke are billowing. It seems that the nest of wickedness is ablaze with the fire started by itself.” And “[d]espite all kinds of attempts by imperialists to isolate and crush us … never will anyone be able to stop the people marching toward a final victory.”

Update: To honor the 85th anniversary of his death, The Hindu has republished their editorial on Gandhi's assassination:

The death of Mahatma Gandhi last evening at New Delhi at the hands of an insensate assassin in circumstances too tragic for reiteration has cast a deep gloom over the country from the effects of which it will not be easy for it to recover. For, as the Prime Minister of India has suggested in his broadcast, at no time in the long and chequered history of this great country were Gandhiji’s wise counsel, courageous guidance, unexcelled foresight and imperturbable patience in the face of events the most calamitous more necessary than to-day. It will be universally accepted that but for his steadying direction, unerring judgment, and a determination which accepted no defeat, the turmoil which befell us in the wake of the partition of the country would have continued to menace us in an ever-increasing measure.

January 16, 2013

Amidst growing international frustration with Pakistan, Hina Rabbani Khar defends her country's policies. She describes the discovery of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan as a "huge intelligence failure" and "infuriating."

December 21, 2012

One of the themes from the recent war between Israel and Hamas was the performance of Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system. In this video, Uzi Rubin, president of the defense consulting firm Rubicon, and founding director of the Israel Missile Defense Organization discusses how well it did.

November 28, 2012

The New York Timesreports that the Syrian rebels have gotten their hands on surface-to-air rockets and have used them at least once to down a regime helicopter, as shown above. The question now becomes: how did they get them? According to the Times:

Debate has raged since the start of the insurgency over whether Western and Arab nations should provide Syria’s rebels with portable antiaircraft missiles, often called Manpads. Some fear that such weapons could be smuggled away from the conflict and later used by terrorists against civilian airliners.

Manpads funneled by the United States to Pakistan helped Afghan rebels turn the tide against the Soviet Union in the Afghan war of 1980s. But that example is full of ambivalence — often cited in the Syria debate — because it led to an extended buyback program and decades of worry after Islamist militias, which eventually collaborated with Al Qaeda, prevailed over the Soviet-backed government in Kabul.

“Once these weapons are outside of government control, it is often extremely difficult to track their movement and control who has access to them,” said Matthew Schroeder, an analyst who studies missile proliferation at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington.

The rebels have slowly been acquiring them nonetheless, including from Syrian military stock captured in battle, and according to the unconfirmed accounts of some rebel commanders, via smuggling from outside.

Tuesday’s helicopter downing occurred not far from a large military base outside Aleppo, which rebels overran last week. It comes after a monthlong string of rebel raids on air bases, followed by their ransacking for weapons.

Andrew J. Tabler, a Syria analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, called the use of the missile “a big deal, but not a surprising deal,” and said it appeared to confirm one of two things: weapons seized from bases are functional, or that there has been truth to the quiet talk that after the recent meeting in Doha, Qatar, to reorganize the Syrian opposition into a new coalition, outside countries would provide more sophisticated weapons to the rebels.

It would be one thing if the rebels raided regime stocks - that's unavoidable. But if any Western government thinks funneling surface-to-air missiles to Syrian rebels is a good idea, they need to have their heads examined. These weapons can be used to down passenger jets and there's no way that Western intelligence officials could stop a few of these weapons from leaking beyond Syria (it will be hard enough to stop Syria's own stockpiles from leaking).

Al-Qaeda has a long and ugly history of targeting Western aircraft. Literally handing over potent tools to Islamist rebels to do just that is insane.

November 21, 2012

In a debate over the Israel-Gaza truce talks, Brookings' Khaled Elgindy makes an important point about Hamas:

Even since the attacks began, even since the assassination of their top military commander, their popularity, their stock, if you will, in the region has skyrocketed, while their rivals' in the West Bank has plummeted.

So, and even we're at a situation now where the exact opposite of the intended outcome is what we have. The policy has been for the last five years to support and build up the leadership in the West Bank...And to minimize and weaken through sanctions and diplomatic and other means to the government of the Hamas authority in the West Bank.

Today, we have the Qataris and Egyptians and other Egyptian leaders visiting Hamas, emboldening them and legitimizing them. And it's the American-backed Palestinian Authority that is on the verge of financial collapse.

So, essentially, you cannot have -- the definition of a failed policy is when it achieves the exact opposite of its intended outcome.

September 6, 2012

Vladimir V. Putin is the unquestioned supreme leader of Russia, known for his icy stare and steely ways. But now Mr. Putin has taken on a new, perhaps more tender, leadership role. He has guided a flock of birds — through the air.

Russia’s president piloted a motorized hang glider over an Arctic wilderness while leading six endangered Siberian cranes toward their winter habitat, as part of an operation called “The Flight of Hope,” his press office confirmed Wednesday.

July 16, 2012

In May, Frontline ran a fascinating documentary on al-Qaeda in Yemen. It follows Iraqi reporter Abdul-Ahad as he travels into an al-Qaeda-held city and several strongholds throughout the country.

One interesting revelation to emerge in the footage is how sensitive al-Qaeda has become to tribal sensibilities following their rout in Iraq. Indeed, Ahad relates that even in Yemen, al-Qaeda ran afoul of a local tribe in the town of Lawdar and was quickly driven out. Meanwhile, Yemen's divided and dysfunctional army has largely failed to dislodge al-Qaeda.

April 6, 2010

At least yesterday, the bloodiest insurgency was not in Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Iraq, but in India:

The Naxalites have been around for a long time and it looks like they are still going strong. This hearkens back to the days not so long ago when insurgencies were generally looked at as domestic rather than foreign problems.

March 15, 2010

It goes without saying that Al Jazeera is often very critical of Israel, so they highlight one that implicates Israelis, but there is another war crime that the report describes and it goes completely unnoticed; or at least uncommented on.

March 8, 2010

As it turns out, we did not. I must confess that I was a little bit disappointed, because Adam Gadahn is the first person indicted for treason in years, and watching this video he is not helping his case.

March 2, 2010

Today's video of the day is in keeping with the question of American military decline:

While military expenditures are not perfect measures of military capability, the U.S. military budget is currently greater than the rest of the worlds military expenditures combined, meaning that there is no country, nor combination of countries that can muster the military capital to equal the U.S. That one third of the populace is confused about this is amazing.

March 1, 2010

While there seems to be little danger of an actual coup in Turkey at this time, past coup attempts are in the news because of a recent crackdown in the country:

Turkey has an interesting history where coups are almost always pro-liberal events. The military overthrows the democratically elected government, because the government strays too far from principles of freedom, and so far the military has always willingly returned power to the people. Coups in Turkey are therefore often an illustration of how processes (democracy) is not the same as ideology (liberalism, in the classical sense). It is also an interesting case of the difficulty of democracy in the Middle East.

February 26, 2010

South Carolina representative Joe Wilson got a bit of attention for shouting "you lie!" during President Obama's address to Congrees. But the UK's Nigel Farage gives EU President Herman Van Rompuy the tongue-lashing of a life time:

February 24, 2010

If Hugo Chavez was not a virtual dictator of an important country in Latin America, I would say that he would be one of the funniest comedians in Latin America:

There is so much to chuckle about here, including addressing the Queen as if she controls British policy. Just in case you were wondering, though, the last time Argentina had any settlements in the Falklands was the 1830s. Now it is basically a huge sheep farm, with a population of about 3,000, all of whom speak English. So why care about the Falklands? You guessed it: Oil.

February 22, 2010

It seems universally true that a problematic few cause problems for all, and this is no more true than in Iran:

Iran has a long and justifiably proud history of scientific research, and it is impressive to see them pressing on in the face of sanctions and isolation. The saddest part is that there are probably many scientists caught in Iran who only want to advance their science, but are being inhibited because most of the world is concerned that their government is going to develop WMDs. It's possible that even some of the scientists working on the nuclear program feel that way.

February 17, 2010

This is a topic that we have covered elsewhere on this blog, and yet a possible Mossad assassination is just too good to leave alone.

While there have always been conspiracy theories, the Internet has given them a home they never had. To be sure, there was a conspiracy here: to kill a Hamas commander. It succeeded, and maybe someday we will know who and why. In the mean time there will be a ton of speculation. Just for fun, kick in your conspiracy theory in the comments. I found it interesting that the conspirators apparently used the identities only of Europeans who speak Arabic.

February 16, 2010

Two weeks ago a Hamas commander was killed in his hotel room in Dubai. Now the authorities have released CCTV video showing the assassins tracing the man's movements:

The assassins had passports from a variety of European countries and now that their faces have been plastered all over Dubai, the awkward diplomacy begins. Here's the Daily Telegraph:

The Foreign Office was investigating how the identities of six innocent Britons — at least three of whom lived in Israel — came to be used by the alleged hit team...

As police in Dubai released CCTV footage of the suspects yesterday, some of the Britons whose identities were stolen voiced their anger after waking up to discover that they had been named in the plot.

"I have not left Israel for two years and I certainly have not been to Dubai recently," said Kent-born Paul Keeley, 42, a builder who has lived on a Kibbutz in northern Israel for the past 15 years.

"When I first heard about this I immediately looked to make sure my passport was still there and it was. It has not been stolen, so I don’t know what on earth has happened.

I'm obviously in no position to tell what's going on, but it does strike me as extremely problematic to steal an innocent person's identity to carry out an assassination. Of course, there's almost certainly a lot more to this story.

If Secretary Clinton's portrayal of the administration's view of Iran is accurate, then it has a very peculiar view indeed:

This characterization is interesting, as it presents the current government in Iran - or in the recent past - as a legitimate one, just as the election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is being challenged.

February 12, 2010

Sometimes people forget that China remains an authoritarian regime, but unfortunately, they cannot go long without reminding us:

It is strange to me that Liu Xiaobo has not received the attention that other causes celebres do. If there is any modern analog to Ghandi, or Martin Luther King, it is probably Liu Xiaobo. Poignantly, he is only accused of signing the Charter 2008.

February 10, 2010

February 9, 2010

It seems as though Iran really enjoys stirring up trouble with the west:

For those who are not familiar, 20% enriched uranium is called Highly Enriched Uranium, and is a higher grade that what you find just lying around, or than what is commonly used for experiments at universities and so forth. It is still well short of the 90% enriched uranium necessary for weapons, but getting to 20% is the hard part. Once a country can create HEU, it is a relatively small step to weapons grade. For a reference on uranium enrichment, check out the Federation of American Scientists page on enrichment.

February 8, 2010

It is apparent to me that Al Jazeera is attempting to paint the U.S. in a negative light with this video. While U.S. soldiers are in vehicles, who do you suppose delivered (and secured) those supplies? Nevertheless, this video highlights the Catch-22 that many Afghans feel they are in now.

February 5, 2010

It is interesting that a system completely incapable of withstanding a concerted assault by Russia should be so important not only to Russia, but to states like Romania and Poland. In this case it is not because of the capabilities, but the symbolism of the system. Eastern European states view the missile system, and presumably the troops that comes with it, as a clear signal of U.S. commitment in the region. Based on the reaction from the Kremlin, the Russians apparently agree - and they do not like it.

February 3, 2010

Gordon Chang is extremely well known for being bearish on China, and so represents only one side of the scholarly debate on China and Chinese policy. Nevertheless, he points out something that is very interesting, and is often overlooked when dealing with U.S. and Chinese relations. Often people seem to think that the U.S. needs China because China has a huge market, but the trade balance shows that really it is China which needs the U.S. market. The only thing China buys in large quantities is U.S. debt, which I think most Americans would happily quit exporting.

February 2, 2010

This could be an interesting natural experiment on the power, or lack thereof, of sanctions. While it is possible that a wobbly company might be hurt by sanctions, it seems unlikely that the economic titans that are U.S. defense contracting companies are among them. If this squabble heightens, this may finally spell the end of "Chimerica."

January 29, 2010

The plan to 'reintegrate' the Taliban with money may seem like a new idea, but some are skeptical of its potential effectiveness:

The logic behind aid for current Taliban fighters is roughly the same as that behind foreign aid: we give you money to meet your needs, and you do not support our enemies. Underlying this is the assumption that these groups are actually somewhat autonomous and independent. If it works, 300 million is actually a fairly cheap price to make Afghanistan calmer.

January 28, 2010

Yemen has gotten a lot of attention since the 'Panty Bomber' set his nether regions aflame and admitted to receiving training there. However, some Yemeni's are not all that thrilled about it:

No one should be surprised that people do not like outsiders interfering in the national business. Nevertheless, powerful states will always protect their interests, often at the expense of weaker states sovereignty. Sometimes there is a causal relationship, such that weak states are the target for groups like Al Qaeda, and since Al Qaeda threatens powerful states, the weak state is subject to powerful state influence. Regardless, complaints about outside interference are almost always a hallmark of weakness in a given area. Nobody ever really interferes in internal U.S. matters because that is a good way to get a non-humanitarian visit from the U.S. military.

January 26, 2010

Some will view this as another rejection of the Obama administration, but primarily it is a demonstration of the fierce independence that most Arabs and Iraqis have with regards to their own affairs. It is possible that this disagreement could devolve into violence, but there does not seem to be much that the U.S. could do to stop it. It's disingenuous however to represent the Iraqi government as currently divided with "pro-" and "anti-" U.S. branches. Clearly there are going to be factions within any democratic government, but since Iraq is a partial parliamentary system, the parliament chooses the president, and therefore minimizes the differences across branches.

January 25, 2010

That China and Google are still in the news tells you that this story is more significant than perhaps originally thought:

Part of the reason this story may have such long legs could be the fact that Google is such a powerful corporation. However, more tellingly, instead of backing off and denying everything, the Chinese Communist Party has decided to double down on their control of the internet. This is potentially significant for two reasons: 1. the party views its control of the internet as critical to its survival, meaning that China may not be as stable as many currently perceive, or 2. China now believes that its power vis-à-vis the United States is great enough that it can forge its own path in the international community,meaning that China's heretofore peaceful rise may have been ephemeral.

January 22, 2010

If there were ever a country that embodies the security dilemma as described by John Mearsheimer, it is Russia. Every increase in capabilities by near or not-so-near countries causes them to feel threatened. It is worth noting that the Patriot Missile system is primarily defensive, and Russian airspace is well out of range when deployed 100km from the border. Nevertheless, the tension in the U.S.-Russian relationship highlights the strange dynamic of nuclear politics where increases in defensive capabilities also increase first strike incentives.

For more videos on subjects from around the world, check out the RCW Video page.

January 21, 2010

On the RCW video page we will periodically host interviews and speeches. Today we have Joseph Stiglitz:

Regardless of how many Nobel's someone has, one should never accept what they say uncritically. Nevertheless, Joseph Stiglitz is probably the most important critic of unchecked free markets in the west today. In academic circles, one would likely describe him as an opponent of the Chicago School, however in popular parlance, both Stiglitz and the Chicago School often devolve to parodies of themselves. One can see in this interview that Stiglitz may favor a second stimulus, but he is also concerned about deficit spending.

January 19, 2010

Haiti is having the same problems that occur in the wake of many natural disasters.

Most people may remember that there were significant problems in the wake of Hurricane Katrina with the rule of law. Even without the problems of natural disaster, Haiti has had problems. Of course, many of these looters are probably just doing what it takes to stay alive, but as the rebuilding of the infrastructure drags on it would be unsurprising if we see many more casualties from lack of supplies and violence. Of course, there are always those, who wish to ignore that reality.

For more videos on subjects from around the world, check out the RCW Video page.

January 18, 2010

It seems that the Taliban may be hoping for their own Walter Cronkite moment.

While in retrospect we know that the Tet Offensive was a complete disaster for the Viet-Cong, it was a turning point in the Vietnam war, in no small part because it led to Walter Cronkite's famous editorial, declaring the war unwinnable. The political success of Tet led many who oppose the U.S. to believe that all that was needed was a well timed coup de grace to win. If this is what the Taliban were trying to do, it failed, in part because they seem to have failed to hold any area, and in part because the soldiers fighting them are Afghans.

January 12, 2010

News that probably will not get a lot of play but may have far reaching consequences:

It is worth noting that Bangladesh is a primarily Muslim country, which actually used to be known as Eastern Pakistan. It was able to break away from that country as a result of Indian intervention which was part of the Indo-Pakistani war of 1971. It may be significant that India is able to warm ties to an Islamic country in South Asia.

For more videos on the latest issues from around the world check out the RCW video page.

January 6, 2010

On Monday, the United States joined South Korea in allowing HIV-positive people to visit and immigrate to their countries:

While this story has been up against a lot of domestic and international issues in the news cycle, I am surprised that outside of a few AIDS advocacy groups and the United Nations, almost nothing has been said on the topic. The closest we got was this report by ABC.